Bill Cosby, UVA, and Eric Garner

I have no idea if Bill Cosby is guilty of the charges made against him by women, much like the "Jackie" in the Rolling Stone article who accused an entire fraternity at UVA, a story that was later completely debunked. But if he is guilty, he must have hundreds of accomplices over 60 years in the media, talent booking agencies, entertainment industry, and the women themselves who seemed to come back for more. But it's really strange that in 2014 a man who did more for the black family than all Obama's team is now vilified, and another man, 43 years old, with a 30 year history of criminal activity who resisted arrest and died, is being mourned like a saint. If you tried to write this as fiction, who would believe you?

The University of Virginia phony rape scandal and the real scandal of the media and the administration

Buck Sexton writes: “The Left has gone mad over the Rolling Stone retraction.

I don't mean it's angry and self-righteous- that's always the case. I don't mean its arguments are weak, self-contradictory, unprincipled- I expect that too. This is different.

Many progressives have absolutely lost all touch with reality over the rapidly collapsing tale of the most vicious, sadistic campus rape imaginable.

They aren't reevaluating based on the facts, they are doubling down, and saying things so stupid, and so immoral, it is hard to believe they are serious.

Here we have a prime example:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…/no-matter-what-jackie-said…/

A leftist commentator, in a major newspaper, writing flat out- the truth of the Rolling Stone story of a hideous gang rape at UVA doesn't matter.The individuals falsely accused don't matter. The University and administrators defamed in the piece don't matter.

It's the cause that matters. Only the cause. Always the cause.

This thinking dictates we must believe every and all accusations of rape, right away, without questioning or investigating. That's not an overstatement, read the piece and you will see an incoherent but fervent attack on the presumption of innocence as a principle. And written by a lawyer no less!

She is not alone, by the way. Other commentators have somehow perversely turned this into a case of "rape denialism." First off, I'm not sure that's even a thing, because rape is a serious criminal violation in every state and nobody anywhere in this country denies that it exists, and it happens far too often. One rape is too many.

But denialism? If something is said to be true, and it isnt, are we to say its true anyway, lest we be denialers? This is absurd.

Are there "murder denialists?" If someone wrote a story about how a fraternity was engaging in ritualized human sacrifice and stacking dead bodies in its basement, without anyone who noticed caring enough to call the cops- I think it would raise some eyebrows and strain believability. At a minimum, it would require investigation.

This isn't "denialism," it's rationality.

Which brings us to the next point of the bitter enders on the Left here- that the entire onus of everything wrong in this whole situation is on Rolling Stone. That's just simply not true.

Did a Rolling Stone reporter find a far too convenient, one-in-a-million story with the sort of sensational implications that would get national attention? Yup. Did that reporter then fail to uphold even the most rudimentary standards of journalism in a rush to publish something that should have required additional levels of fact-checking and even more vigilant journalistic ethics?Indeed.

But Rolling Stone isn't the only party at fault here. Despite the shrill (and in the case of MSNBC's Chris Hayes twitter tirade- childishly profane) effort to place this all on a magazine that would have ceased to exist in a rational world many years ago, there is the very real possibility that the subject of the story-- "Jackie"- lied.

That doesn't mean she fabricated the whole thing, although that is entirely possible, but she did apparently get facts wrong. Not jumbled, not vague- wrong. And that's apart from the basic credulity issues surrounding all this.

Nobody downstairs at the fraternity house was unnerved enough by the site of a woman covered in blood, bruises, and broken glass to do anything? None of her friends cared? No administrator called the police? Didn't tell her parents? Not a single, honorable person is to be found anywhere at UVA or anywhere in this story?

Of course, this is what got the story so much attention. In a country where the sexual assault scourge on campus is well-established and now even has the White House involved, this story was an outlier. Nobody had ever heard of an attack like this at a major university with such callous responses from so many.

And now those in the media who were willing to use the most baseless slurs- "rape apologists"- against anyone who questioned this outlandish narrative want to tell us all that something still happened to Jackie. It's not her fault. Maybe she got foggy, or maybe she exaggerated a little because of the trauma.

(How do they know this, by the way? Any of it? Aren't they relying on a retracted magazine piece for all of their facts too?)

But even a material exaggeration of facts in a sexual assault is problematic (and under oath, would be perjury). If someone punches me in the face at a bar, that's assault. I can't just decide to add that brass knuckles were used, and I was also robbed, in order to make the assailant seem worse and get more time. In a criminal court, the details of the crime have very real implications for the charges brought, and the length of sentence. It's not ok to intentionally get creative or exaggerate a crime, no matter how much catharsis it may give a victim.

This is all starting to feel very much like the Duke Lacrosse case of 2006- another story that to an honest reader from the beginning seemed very, very improbable, but it turned into a national media sensation anyway. "Race, class, sex, and privilege"- that was the story. And it was all a big, fat, grotesque lie.

And if you recall, the disgraced, almost comically evil prosecutor in that case- Mike Nifong- still would claim that "something happened that" after the accused lacrosse players were said by the state of North Carolina to be completely innocent! Not "not guilty," but "innocent!"

It seems the Nifong effect is on display now. Rolling Stone is disgraced, the entire rape story may have been a fabrication, and there are Leftists who think that those who questioned the initial story- even though they were right to do so- are somehow the real problem.

The truth always matters. There is no cause that can make the truth irrelevant. The Left is dead wrong on all this, but don't expect them to admit it anytime soon.

Why the left needs racism

Racism, in my opinion, was dying out before 2009--panicked Democrats then had to ratchet it up because without victims, who would vote for their progressive policies which demand more government? Obama took his amazing win and frittered it away on insurance reform that about 10% of the population needed, added mandates no one wanted, and ignored the financial plight of many blacks and a deteriorating middle eastern problem. So who gets blamed? Everyone who wasn't black. Crime rates have been dropping for 2 decades, and that was upsetting for Democrats too--that party must have victims for the nanny state.  These links are to articles are the observations of James Taranto, writer for Wall Street Journal.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324591204579038930800899184 Third part

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703922804576301162877959524 Second part

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704671904575193921155425154  First part

If Saul Alinsky had a son

If the late Saul Alinsky had fathered a black son, he’d look like Barack Obama. … Alinsky emphasized that the overarching objective of any crusade is NEVER to promote peace or reconciliation, but rather to be unwaveringly ‘dedicated to an eternal war’ in which ‘there are no rules of fair play’ and ‘no compromise’ whatsoever; to mercilessly ‘pulverize’ people with ‘fear’; and ultimately to ‘force their capitulation.’”—John Perazzo, Front Page, Dec. 5, 2014

Hillary Clinton is also a big fan of Alinsky.

Are we being lied to about race and income by the media and politicians?

Today I was looking at the U.S. Census.  Now, to answer a question, you can’t always get a table of Honey Crisp apples.  Sometimes it’s apples and oranges in a box.    For instance, I looked at the Family Income by race—but the table didn’t define “family.” That’s not necessarily mom, dad and kids.  I suppose for census purposes it’s any group of related people living in a household, but I don’t actually know.  Anyway, it’s Table 695. Money Income of Families—Number and Distribution by Race and Hispanic Origin: 2009. U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2012   Based on that table, the percent of white families earning over $100,000 is 27%; the percent of black families earning over $100,000 is 12.1%; the percent of Hispanic families earning over $100,000 is 12.4% and the percent of Asian families earning over $100,000 is 37.7%.  So if whites are 77.7% of the population and blacks are 13.2%,  and Asians are 5.3%, if something needs to be investigated, if something isn’t “fair,” if the president wants to address a wealth gap, wouldn’t it be the fault of the Asian families?  What are they doing to “deserve” such a big slice of the pie?  Marriage?  Education?  Values? Entrepreneurship? Have you ever heard the president chastise Asians for their education, intelligence, hard work?  Their median family income is $75,027, black family income is $38,409.

Thankful for what

It’s a little beyond Thanksgiving, the holiday, but I watched Dr. Jeremiah on a Christian TV channel and liked the subject—thankfulness.  Thought it would be good to have it on file. http://www.lightsource.com/ministry/turning-point/video-player/thankful-for-what-435307.html   The sermon begins at about 19:50—or you can watch and listen to the music (contemporary) and then sermon.  Take away.  Thankfulness is not a feeling, it’s an action.  The feeling will come after the action.

Paul is the “thankfulness” writer of the Bible, and most of those letters were written from prison.

Warnings of peak oil are nearly as old as the oil industry

“. . . the International Energy Agency forecasts that U.S. production will still surpass Saudi Arabia’s output of 9.7 million barrels a day, and overtake Russia’s 10.3 million, perhaps sometime next year. This would make America the world’s largest oil producer, which it was from the dawn of the oil age through 1974. Thanks to the fracking boom, the U.S. surpassed Russia as the world’s largest natural-gas producer in 2013. “  Peak Oil Debunked Again.

White privilege?

I like to shop at Volunteers of America.  Today I got a "Baby Boom Box" radio (about 7") for 90 cents, a Charles Dickens novel on cd for 90 cents plus a 10th ed Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary for $2.93.  Checking out I heard the door alarm go off and a customer came back--there were multiple apologies between clerk and customer as her bag was checked.  The customer, a white 30-ish woman, then announced that now she realized how poor and minorities feel who are subjected to this suspicion "all the time." She was giving a "white privilege" mea culpa rant right there where you can buy a coat for $2.00.  The Asian clerk who had limited English looked a little puzzled. The woman next to me who was buying a nice cookbook for $1 just rolled her eyes.

Use of force by police

Better policing has improved life for minorities and saved many lives. But that information, even though it's from government sources, doesn't buy votes. "Two decades of data on police interactions with the public don’t support the idea that something extraordinary is afoot, that the police are becoming “militarized” as President Obama has suggested, or that distrust between police and local communities has produced an enormous spike in conflicts. By contrast, the data show that significant crime declines have been accompanied by a leveling off and then a reduction in confrontations with the police, as reported by Americans of all races."

 http://www.city-journal.org/2014/eon1204sm.html

From the archives of Obama opening his reign by soothing race problems, blaming the police of Cambridge for doing their job--the Louis Gates incident in 2009:

"The actions of the Cambridge Police Department, and in particular, Sgt. Joseph Crowley, were 100 percent correct,'' said Hugh Cameron, president of the Massachusetts Coalition of Police. "He was responding to a report of two men breaking into a home. The police cannot just drive by the house and say, 'Looks like everything is OK.'

"Sgt. Crowley was carrying out his duty as a law enforcement officer protecting the property of Professor Gates, and he was accused of being a racist," Cameron added. "The situation would have been over in five minutes if Professor Gates cooperated with the officer. Unfortunately, the situation we are in now is the environment police work in now." From ABC news which also noted that the residence in question belonged to Harvard, not Gates (I did not fact check ABC).

This is why Eric Garner died. He was selling loose cigarettes in a state where cigs are $12.50+ a pack--Obama added $1 in 2009 and Bloomberg added $1.65.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/nyregion/05loosie.html?

French toast sticks

I made a breakfast casserole (eggs, bread cubes, ham, Half n Half) and had a lot of crusts left over, so I googled the dilemma, “what to do with bread crusts” and found this.  I had some cinnamon/sugar mix left from making snickerdoodles the other day, so it solved 2 problems.

Baby Boom Box

Today I bought a Baby Boom Box (AM and FM radio) at Volunteers of America for 90 cents.  It’s really cute. It was missing the clip that covers the 4 AA batteries, but I figured that wouldn’t be a problem if it worked.  It works fine, has good quality sound, BUT there isn’t an off on switch, so it looks like I’ll need to remove at least one battery to turn it off.

Friday Family Photo—napping with Abby

All I need to know about life I learned from a snowman

It’s okay if you’re a little bottom heavy.

Hold your ground, even when the heat is on.

Wearing white is always appropriate.

Winter is the best of the four seasons.

It takes a few extra rolls to make a good midsection.

There’s nothing better than a foul weather friend.

The key to life is to be a jolly, happy soul.

It’s not the size of the carrot, but the placement that counts.

We’re all made up of mostly water.

You know you’ve made it when they write a song about you.

Accessorize! Accessorize! Accessorize!

Avoid yellow snow.

Don’t get too much sun.

It’s embarrassing when you can’t look down and see your feet.

It’s fun to hang out in your front yard.

Always put your best foot forward.

There’s no stopping you once you’re on a roll.

 http://www.inspirationalarchive.com/1552/all-i-need-to-know-about-life-i-learned-from-a-snowman/#ixzz3L1ietOoF

Why wasn’t this a hate crime?

Not once was this gang rape and beating of a girl at a school dance with many students watching called a "hate crime."  I blogged about it in 2009, and see some of the "men" and boys were convicted in 2013.  No riots about race, either--couldn't see her face in the court drawings, but she appeared to be white, the assailants black and Hispanic.

 http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/07/16/juries-deliberating-in-2009-richmond-high-school-gang-rape-case/

The war on women doesn’t include rape and cross-racial crime.  Too touchy. Al Sharpton didn’t show up.  The president didn’t say she could have been his daughter. And why 4 years to get a conviction?

The lies about Ferguson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2PYJPPFx9Q#t=301

Conspiring to put an innocent man in jail—truth is a casualty.

Benjamin Aaron Shapiro, known as Ben Shapiro (born January 15, 1984 is an American conservative political commentator, best selling author, radio talk show host, attorney, and media consultant.

A native of Los Angeles, Shapiro graduated from UCLA and Harvard Law School. He has written five books, starting with Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth in 2004, writes a column for Creators Syndicate, is editor-at-large of Breitbart News, and founder/editor-in-chief for the media watchdog group TruthRevolt. Wikipedia

The Christmas catalogs keep coming

I mentioned the huge number of catalogs we've been getting. Yesterday we got "Wireless," which sells just about anything, especially t-shirts.  If you've got a train buff on your list look at VQ7722, $34.95.  Supposedly, each engine and caboose is so detailed you can identify it. Then there is "Easily manipulated by grandkids," that would work for some I know. "Prayer the world's greatest wireless connection." Some really nice long sleeve black T's with musical instruments. "World cat herding champion." "With age comes oldness." "Careful, or you'll end up in my novel." "Back in my day we had 9 planets." http://www.thewirelesscatalog.com/wireless/T-Shirts_3RA.html

 

 

How to use a crisis

Something's a little fishy. Obama loads up our local police with all that left over war stuff--even Ohio State got some and lumbering multi-wheeled armored trucks suitable for sand dunes look a little silly on campus.  Then he decides local control of the police isn't good enough to protect blacks, and the police really need more federal control. http://wdtn.com/2014/09/09/ohio-and-military-equipment/ Then he has tax dodger Al Sharpton at his beer summit as though he speaks for law abiding African Americans. 

And how about that lefty media getting vapors about what one GOP woman said on Twitter?  Ayesha Kreutz, a black woman FB friend, comments:

“So, I read a headline ONLY that some GOP woman has resigned? What? She resigned over making a comment about the Obama girls looking bored and their clothing apparently. What in the world is happening people? Now, don't get it twisted, sure it is kind of mean spirited IMHO to pick on kiddos especially those of high profile people, but hey, it is part of the job I suppose, it happens. But how in the world is this lady resigning and not Barack Obama?

• He can launder money (Solyndra) and not have to resign?
• He can get an United States ambassador killed ( Benghazi) and not have to resign?
• Obama and his administration did more than Nixon ever thought of doing, he has an enemies list and targeted citizens with the IRS, and no resigning for him?
• He can lie repeatedly to the American people as a matter of fact he is a prolific liar I would list the list but they are endless, yet no resignation?

This is just the mega short list of why he should resign, though impeachment is much better. Democrats should be ashamed to let this guy represent them, If he was a Republican president he would have been impeached already and we would have brought up the charges ourselves. The GOP has its head somewhere bad or else the White House has so many secrets/scandals on these folks and are threatening to use them. If that is the case for the good of the country you all need to step down; other wise grow a pair.”

Then an NFL player posted a photo of the rear end of Malia, and nary an outcry for sexualizing the first daughter.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/2/ferguson-police-werent-invited-white-house-meeting/

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/01/obama-white-house-summit-ferguson

“Protesters in Ferguson were confronted by police driving armoured personnel carriers and carrying assault weapons, who repeatedly used tear gas and rubber bullets against demonstrators. Last week, teams of officers armed with military-grade weaponry and army-style fatigues were once again seen driving around Ferguson, although the overall response by law enforcement was more calibrated.”

What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted: 200 Years of Popular Culture in the White House by Tevi Troy

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15824285-what-jefferson-read-ike-watched-and-obama-tweeted

I was at Half-Price Books today and noticed this title on the Clearance shelf for $2.00.  I almost selected it because I like to read about readers. I looked at the chapter on President G.W. Bush, and was surprised to see the author got it right, whereas Bush detractors (most of the media) were totally off base.  Bush was an avid reader—he and Rove used to have competitions. 

Laura Bush’s recommendations

“Mr. Bush was more of a reader than many Americans imagined — he had reading contests with Karl Rove, his top political adviser, measured not just by the number of books finished, but the cumulative number of pages and even square inches of text. He was particularly drawn to Lincoln, reading 14 books about the Civil War president while in office.

His reading at times had impact. Natan Sharansky’s book “The Case for Democracy” helped inform Mr. Bush’s second-term focus on spreading freedom around the world.

And Alistair Horne’s history of the war in Algeria, “A Savage War of Peace,” taught Mr. Bush that more people died after the French withdrew — reinforcing his own reluctance to pull out of Iraq.

“Obama’s book selections have been harder to read,” said Mr. Troy, the author of “What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted.”  Obama’s book list

President GHW Bush’s summer list

Bush’s last year and WaPo finds out he reads

Suggested reading, GW Bush

The dumbing down of smart

“In researching my book National Insecurity, I looked at 10 of the most prominent think tanks in Washington over a period of a decade. These organizations produced almost 12,000 events, papers, and research reports over that time. Of these, the vast majority concentrated on just a few topics -- such as the Middle East, the war on terror, and China -- linked closely to whatever was in the headlines at the time. Other areas, deserving of focus but outside the "buzz zone," got much less attention. The areas that got by far the least coverage? Science and technology -- never mind that they are responsible for most of the changes redefining life on the planet and many of the emerging threats with which humanity is grappling. “ and lack of creative thinking is most apparent in Washington, D.C. Of the 2014 global thinkers on the FP list, only 2 are from the U.S.

David Rothkopf

The last Thanksgiving